LIBERTYS NICOLE DAURIO grabs this rebound a split second before Cornwalls Jennifer Kelly can get to the ball in Fridays game.

Cornwall Defeats Liberty

By Ted WaddellLIBERTY  February 12, 2002  In most Dungeons and Dragons stories, the sorcerers defeat the mythical creatures on ancient wizardry lore.
But in Friday nights OCIAA Division III girls varsity basketball game at Liberty, the Lady Dragons of Cornwall (12-4, 8-1 OCIAA) defeated the home team Lady Indians, 42-25.
In the first period, Liberty ( 5-12, 3-7 OCIAA) jumped out to an early lead, but watched it wither away as the Lady Dragons fought back to take a 8-6 advantage at the end of those opening eight minutes of play.
Spurred on by Coach Ted Crowley, the Lady Indians tied it up 15-15# with seconds remaining in the first half. But an attempted steal backfired, and Cornwall took a 17-15 lead into the locker room.
In the deciding third period, the Lady Dragons made some adjustments to Libertys aggressive defensive pressure to outscore the Lady Indians by a 16-10 margin.
The Lady Indians tried to come back in the closing frame, but were outgunned, 9-4.
Ericka Edsall# reached double digits for Cornwall (15 points), while Andrea TerBush was high scorer for Liberty with eight points.
At the free throw line, Liberty was five-of-10 (50 percent) and Cornwall converted 11-of-15 (73 percent).
Its always a tough game when we come up# here to play Liberty, Cornwall Coach Tito Maisonet said.
Maisonet noted that before the start of the contest, he told his team they have to prepare for every game, we cant play lazy ball.
In the first half, Liberty lived up# to that promise and played excellent defense against us, he added. In the second half, we were a little more patient with our offense and cut down on our fouls.
Crowley liked the way the Lady Indians competed.
For little 3-6 Liberty, our team came to play basketball, he said. We moved and hustled in the first half and took away a lot of things Cornwall wanted to do, but they outplayed us in the second half.
For us, it was a tremendous performance against a really good basketball team.
Crowley also enjoyed the total team effort his squad displayed.
The girls performed beautifully coming off the bench, he said. Abby DeJesus came off the bench and did a tremendous job of boxing out and helping out defensively . . . we went to the bench, and the girls played well collectively.
According to Crowley, he still hopes to make the sectionals with three games remaining in regular season play this week as the Lady Indians confront James I. ONeill, John S. Burke Catholic School and Fallsburg.
TerBush, a 16-year-old Liberty junior, has been playing varsity for the Lady Indians since ninth grade.
We played really good in the first half, but kind of lost our intensity in the second half, she said.
Her take on the 2001-2002 hoops season?
Weve had chances to win games, but we didnt, said TerBush. Overall, its been pretty good.